by Matt Levin
As Onyx’s eyes softened, Tanner felt a surge of pride swell in his chest. He had earned Onyx’s approval. And he got a feeling that it was not easy to earn this man’s respect.
“Then show me. Become the man you were always meant to become,” Onyx said. Then, he turned to leave. “I have to be off,” Onyx continued. “Things are in motion that need my attention. We need to be ready.”
Tanner stayed rooted in place, transfixed by a sense of giddiness. Onyx had personally given Tanner his blessing. Tanner felt a fire burning in his gut, and resolved to put forth every effort to realize victory in the Offspring’s crusade.
As the crowd thinned, the trio from before shuffled over. “Isn’t Onyx inspiring?” the intense thin man said, his pupils smoldering.
Tanner didn’t know what to say. The power and gravitas of everything had caused him to lose his words. “Tell me how long you have been with the Offspring,” he said finally, drawing on the same sense of assurance he had felt earlier.
“Since nearly the beginning,” the bald man said, “a little over a year ago. We’ve grown so much...I still remember when it was just a handful of people in a basement. Now it’s almost a thousand. And I figure for every attendee here, there’s a dozen more at home.”
Tanner scrunched his eyebrows as he did some mental math in his head. “We only found out about the arrival of the refugee vessel eight months ago.”
The hawkish-looking woman’s mouth curled into a wide grin. “True, but the government knew six months before that. Our movement began right after the Union first picked up the newar vessel.”
Tanner didn’t follow the news much, but he remembered the press conference where the prime minister revealed the government’s knowledge of the refugees. She had explained that only high-level officials had been aware of the Preserver’s existence. “Then how…?” Tanner started.
The other three exchanged glances and grinned. “Because of the intel provided by Onyx,” the bald man said. “You might know him by his real name: Owen Yorteb, ranking general on Prime Minister Favan’s joint chiefs. And one of the most powerful men in the entire system.”
CHAPTER 32
* * *
Staying up late, under the spell of a slight inebriation, had never felt so good to Isadora. She returned to the cabin’s foyer with a refilled glass of wine, and sat down on a deep recliner that eased away all the aches and stiffness in her joints that never went away anymore. Either it was that or the alcohol.
Many of her staff had already gone to sleep. All night, Alexander Mettevin’s usual cheery demeanor had been masked by a pale face still shaken by the afternoon’s events. He had retired to his room early.
One by one, her other staffers went to bed until it was just down to her, Gabby Betam, and Katrina Lanzic. As well as one of the two security personnel, who was still making periodic rounds outside.
Isadora turned her attention to Gabby and Katrina’s conversation. Gabby shook her head in disbelief. “I still can’t believe those Offspring assholes. I looked at their netsite earlier. It’s full of some of the most hateful, insane shit I’ve ever seen. They have these...drawings of us that look more like apes back from Earth than people. We have these absurdly disproportionate muscles and bulging veins and animalistic eyes.
“And they even contradict themselves. One of their articles correctly points out that we underwent electroshock therapy in cryo. But then they say the process turned us into hyper-muscular freaks. Another article says we’re sickly and diseased and frail, and that we’ll dilute the Natonese gene pool if they allow us to interbreed. And here I am, not sure whether I’m more disgusted at the vileness of it all, or frustrated at the obvious logical contradictions in their philosophy.”
Spoken like a true lawyer, Isadora thought.
“These people are genuinely evil,” Katrina said, setting her wine glass down. “Rhetoric like that was the precursor to every instance of ethnic cleansing back on Earth.”
Isadora was hardly new to vicious attacks from others, but Gabby had spent most of her career as a law student and then as a legal expert. She had never been in the public limelight before, along with all the nastiness such a position entailed.
When Isadora had first run for city councilor, even her relatively inconsequential race had brought out the usual unpleasantness of politics. She had seen more than a few cartoons published in local Seattle newspapers that exaggerated all the features that used to cause her insecurity as a teenager: her too-large feet, her too-protruding cheekbones, her too-thin eyes.
It would have been easy to get outraged at some racist caricature of herself. But she had learned that you just had to shrug it off in politics. It was a nasty game, and it took thick skin to play. But she’d had years to adapt. Gabby and Alexander, meanwhile, had only had a few months. She felt a twinge of guilt slither through her body.
Still, Katrina was right: there was a virulence to the Offspring’s rhetoric that went beyond the normal political mudslinging. But although Katrina was right to take the issue seriously, Isadora was fairly confident the Offspring represented only a tiny sliver of the Natonese people.
“What the Offspring are saying about us is wrong,” Isadora said gently, rubbing the side of the glass with her thumb. “Just remember that they represent nothing more than a drop in an ocean. And we will always keep each other safe, no matter what.”
Gabby nodded, staring into the contents of her own wine glass.
“And also remember that there’s nothing more dangerous than evil people with a microphone,” Katrina interjected. Isadora couldn’t help but think that Katrina was trying to contradict her own advice. She smiled and narrowed her eyes at the diplomat.
Gabby took a deep sigh and closed her eyes. She sat like that for several seconds, perfectly still except for the cyclical rise and fall of her chest. Then she opened her eyes, finished the rest of her drink, and pushed herself to her feet. “Both of you are right. I just need to sleep it off. I think maybe Alexander had it right,” she laughed.
Isadora and Katrina both bid their respective goodnights to Gabby as she left the room and ascended the stairs. Isadora and Katrina sat in silence until they heard Gabby’s door close.
“I get the sense you don’t like me very much,” Isadora blurted out. She would never have dared to say something that blunt without the heady courage of her intoxication, but she was feeling slightly reckless. And why the hell not, after all?
Katrina snorted, looked at the ceiling, and then at the ground, as though she was curating her response. “I like you as a person just fine,” Katrina said finally. “You seem nice enough. Good-hearted and all that. But I don’t think you’re particularly good at your job, and your decisions have hindered my own efforts.”
There was something refreshing about getting that out there. It had been an awkward couple of months since their first meeting, where Katrina had snapped at her. The two had mostly just avoided each other. When they did converse, they had a habit of being annoyingly circumspect. Isadora preferred just airing it out.
“Enlighten me,” Isadora said, gesturing with her hand.
Katrina paused. “I don’t think you exhausted all your diplomatic options,” she began. “You could have made a pitch directly to the Natonese people to help bolster your case for settlement, and if that hadn’t worked, you could have appealed directly to Parliament when the settlement charter referenda failed.
“Instead, you panicked and threw everything behind some half-baked effort to colonize Calimor. You should have analyzed the situation coolly and tried to right the ship. Instead, you were desperate. It’s like you saw your job as getting as many people out of cryo as fast as possible, instead of taking the time to make sure our position was secure and sustainable.”
Isadora hadn’t thought about it like that, but Katrina probably had a point. Because no matter how enveloped in her job Isadora had become, bringing Meredith out of cryo was always her priority. It couldn’t be any other wa
y. She was only human.
But she knew she couldn’t justify waking Meredith while resource constraints were still so dire. Which meant that her overriding priority had always been creating conditions where they could thaw out large amounts of people. Maybe someone without such emotional attachments might have come to a different conclusion about how best to proceed.
“And you delegated far too much of your authority to your advisers,” Katrina continued. “I’ve been reading up on their respective projects...this Nadia Jibor individual? Is she anything other than a cowboy shooting from the hip? She landed on one of the most volatile planets in the system, and started making some weighty decisions without your approval. She entered a de facto alliance with the Horde, which may have eroded any goodwill we had left in Parliament.
“These kinds of moves make people suspicious of us. I’m not blaming you or your advisers for the Offspring, but the decisions you’ve made haven’t helped us ease anyone’s concerns about our arrival. That’s given space for a group like the Offspring to form.”
Isadora found it easy to take in Katrina’s criticism. After all, deliberating over decisions had cost Isadora countless nights of sleep. Katrina wasn’t saying much that Isadora hadn’t already berated herself over. But bashing Nadia? That crossed a line. Isadora shifted in her seat and frowned.
“As for Russell Kama? His advice to you has always been suspect. According to the files, he wanted to staff our Calimor colony entirely with EDF reservists...is he insane? If the Union found out that we had only brought soldiers out of cryo, on top of the deal with the Horde that Nadia basically forced you into, how do you think they’d react?”
Katrina had no knowledge of Russ’ mission to Zoledo. Isadora shuddered to think how the diplomat would react if she knew Russ was busy cultivating a relationship with the Syndicate. Then again, watching a full Katrina meltdown might actually be funny, in a way.
Isadora saw the common thread linking Katrina’s various criticisms. The other woman was a micromanager, which Isadora had never been. Even during her earliest days in politics, she had always given her staff plenty of leeway to help the campaign in the best way they saw fit. That philosophy had propelled her into office. Maybe that was why the Preserver computer had settled on her and not Katrina for the job.
Before they could continue their conversation any further, however, the lone security guard still making the rounds burst through the cabin door. “Ma’am,” she said breathlessly. “There’s something you need to see outside.”
Both Isadora and Katrina got up at the same time. “I appreciate the thought, but I already have a capable security detail,” Isadora said. Katrina narrowed her eyes but sat down on the couch.
When they got outside, Isadora immediately noticed a shuttle that had landed on the helipad. The gravel path leading to the landing zone was almost entirely dark, but small fluorescent lights on either side of the trail provided some illumination.
A single man stepped out of the shuttle. The lamp post at the edge of the helipad gave Isadora a good view of his face. It was more tanned than she remembered, and his beard had grown longer in the months since she last saw him, but she still recognized Russ Kama immediately. The guard relaxed her grip on her handgun.
Isadora’s first reaction was surprised elation. She had missed Russ, Nadia, and Vincent during her stay on Obrigan, and seeing him again led to a groundswell of happiness in her abdomen.
But as she walked down the gravel path—painfully, since she had unfortunately not thought to put her shoes back on beforehand—she realized that her outburst of positivity may have been inebriated wishful thinking. Why would Russ be here unless something were seriously wrong?
She composed herself as she reached the helipad. The shuttle’s engines were still on, as though Russ planned to leave in a hurry. “Ma’am,” he said, straightening his back and giving her a salute.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said, trying to project emotional warmth while her teeth chattered. “Although I’m not sure what was so pressing that you had to come find me,” she added.
“I wasn’t about to risk sending this over the Union’s network,” Russ said, looking at his wrister and browsing his files. “Even through our classified channel. It’d still be too much of a security risk. So I boarded a ship for Obrigan as soon as I found out.”
Isadora felt her heart drop. Russ naturally gravitated toward suspicion, and Isadora had come to appreciate the advantages of his catastrophizing tendencies. But she had never seen him truly afraid until now. The strain in his voice was unlike anything she had heard from him yet.
“Here,” Russ said, turning to show her a file on his wrister. Isadora scanned through long lines of financial amounts and accounting information. “I’m a little lost,” she said.
“This is from the Syndicate,” Russ said. “It’s a detailed record of their previous money funneling project in service of an organization known as the Natonus Offspring.”
Having dropped earlier, Isadora's heart now went cold. “I am familiar with the Offspring,” she said, so quiet that she could barely hear herself over the wind.
“They were behind the public movement against the settlement charters,” Russ said. “They threw money behind every disinformation campaign they could. And it all came from a single person.” Russ scrolled down to the bottom of the document, where there was a single name listed: Yorteb, Owen. The same military adviser to Tricia Favan who had been speaking out against them for the past half-year.
They represent nothing more than a drop in the ocean was what Isadora had told Gabby only ten minutes earlier. A drop in the ocean intimately connected to the highest levels of the Union government, more like. A violent shudder passed through her body, while a single thought preoccupied her mind: does Tricia know?
Russ pressed several buttons on his wrister, closing the financial document and playing a feed of their embassy back in Obrigan City. “Riley and I split up. She went to the embassy to scout it out, while I headed here. This footage is live from her own wrister.”
The feed looked like it was coming from a vantage point overlooking the embassy. But even at a distance, Isadora could make out a squad of Union marines outside the embassy. She squinted her eyes and even made out soldiers inside the building, going through her office. Going back would have been a trap. If actual government soldiers were after them, then the question of does Tricia know seemed to have a definitive answer.
“I heard about the Offspring right after we first arrived in the system,” Isadora blurted out. She had never told any of the others what she had heard murmured by a Union staffer during their first meeting, but now the details came spilling out of her.
To his credit, Russ didn’t berate her. He just listened intently, nodding and frowning as she went. “We cannot trust the Union anymore,” he said after she finished.
It was easy enough to come up with objections. Tricia had always been nice enough to her, and Isadora had a hard time believing it was all part of some long-term ploy. If Tricia really didn’t want them in the system, why had she seemed so cooperative?
“Worst-case scenario, the prime minister herself is compromised,” Russ said, as if reading the objections in Isadora’s face. “She could have directed General Yorteb to build up the Offspring as a way of striking at us from the shadows, without the eye of public opinion on her.
“Best-case scenario, instead of evil, the prime minister is just incompetent. She has no knowledge of the fact that one of her ranking military advisers is part of a secret society and overseeing the largest criminal conspiracy in the system behind her back. And now she’s letting him take you into custody.
“I guess what I’m asking is: at this point, does it matter?” Russ asked.
“No,” Isadora muttered. “No, it doesn’t.” Losing trust in the prime minister was like losing a friend. Maybe not a close one, but she had thought she was at least on amicable terms with the Union leader. What else has Tricia k
ept from me? Isadora thought.
“I would advise retreating to our most defensible position,” Russ said. “That means our settlement on Calimor. We should get you and your staff off Obrigan as soon as possible.”
Isadora looked back toward the cabin, where she could make out Katrina’s silhouette in the doorframe. The other woman’s criticism of Isadora’s hands-off appproach swirled through her brain again. If Katrina were in Isadora’s position, what would she do?
And if Isadora really had been making everyone more suspicious of her people during the last half-year, therefore allowing the Offspring’s ideology to fester, was listening to Russ of all people the best choice?
But then her gaze returned to the live feed on Russ’ wrister. What if her staff had still been there? It seemed far-fetched to think the marines would have shot them on sight, but tonight was already full of surprises. She had to prioritize her people’s security first. Diplomacy could resume after everyone was safe.
Maybe Katrina would have done things differently, but there was a reason Isadora was in charge. The unknowable algorithms behind the Preserver computer’s choice were hardly the best form of legitimizing Isadora’s right to govern, but it was all she had. And Katrina knew only peacetime diplomacy. She had never been in a position where the very survival of her own people weighed down on her.
Isadora had to trust Russ’ instincts. The cost was too high if she didn’t.
“I agree,” she said, turning to face Russ again. “I’ll gather my staff.”
“I’ve already booked passage on various commercial spaceliners headed toward the outer rim,” Russ said. “There’s tens of thousands of spacecraft in flight at any given moment, so hopefully we can evade Union security. Especially with help from the Syndicate. Things get a little dicier in terms of flight availability once we get to the asteroid belt, but hopefully we’ll be far enough outside the Union’s sphere of influence by that point that we won’t have to worry as much about security on our tail.”